While looking for ways to create more organic traffic, you may hear a term called SEO-friendly website design almost every single time. However, this term can seem a little overwhelming, especially to businesses that are just starting out in the digital world.
Let's begin by answering the question - what is an SEO-friendly website? Simply put, an SEO-friendly website is implemented with SEO techniques that are designed to help the search engine crawlers to explore and read pages in an easier manner.
Today, many businesses create a website just for the sake of it. They don't incorporate design and content that attract visitors who are important for their business. Due to this, their potential customers are not even able to find it on the web. If their website is optimized correctly, it can transform into a full-fledged salesperson and help them reach their potential customers. An SEO-friendly website helps businesses achieve exactly this. Such a website helps them consider the needs of their target audience. It also helps them rank high on Google, provide an enhanced user experience, and increase their customer base.
Now, you may wonder what are attributes that make your site SEO-friendly. Don't worry, we can answer that for you, too.
What Makes a Website SEO Friendly?
The approach to making a website SEO-friendly is quite simple. It is carried out so that Google and other search engines can crawl efficiently on each webpage, effectively interpret the content, and finally index it in their database. After this, they provide the most valuable and important web pages to their users according to the topics they are looking for.
Some of the most significant characteristics of an SEO friendly website are:
1. Attention to URLs
A simple thing such as a URL can make a world of difference in making a website SEO friendly. Apart from possessing a clean structure, your webpage URL must adhere to the best SEO practices associated with search engine indexing to make your website SEO-friendly. In the case of permanent links, make sure that they are self-explanatory, in lowercase, and separated using dashes. They can also feature keywords placed organically in order to improve visibility.
2. Unique Content
The content on the web pages of your website should be unique for it to be SEO friendly. Search engines are aware of websites with plagiarism and flag them for the same. Such a thing results in a decrease in the SEO friendliness of your website.
3. The Right Structure
A well-structured website is easier to index. Here's what a general website structure is composed of:
Ø Header
Ø Page title or H1 tag
Ø Breadcrumb menu
Ø Text separated into several short paragraphs along with subheadings
Ø Information of the author
Ø Footer
4. Quick-loading Webpages
Needless to say, neither your potential customers nor search engines are fond of slow-loading websites. So, here's an insider tip - SEO-friendly websites are optimized for speed and fast loading time. A website that loads faster leads to more user interactions.
SEO Friendly Website ā Why Do You Need it?
How would you feel if someone does a Google search regarding a problem that your business can solve but your website isn't even visible to them? This is precisely the reason why SEO should matter to you. You are likely to miss out on your potential customers if your site isn't ranking on the first page of SERPs (when a user submits a search query, SERP is the page that a search engine returns).
For a higher ranking on SERPs, you must start your web design process with your target audience and SEO in mind. The chance of your web page ranking on the first page of SERPs increases if you keep on improving your SEO strategies.
With an SEO-friendly website in place, you will have an edge over the competitors who don't create their website according to their potential customers and search engines.
Let's discuss in detail the reasons why your website should be SEO friendly:
1. Helps Generate Organic Traffic
When you work on your website content taking into account the strategies used by the competitors, you are able to obtain a higher ranking, which increases the chances of selling. High ranking is an excellent source of organic traffic to your website (organic traffic is the traffic that comes from search engines).
How to boost organic traffic?
Some ways in which businesses can generate more organic traffic are:
- By creating insightful, persona-optimized content that is based on their market niche
- By using long-tail keywords (the keywords that are more specific to the service or product by the business)
- By creating quality content and being consistent at it
2. Helps Get Valuable Traffic
If you are getting web traffic, that's great! But you must ensure that you are attracting potential customers as well. As we now already know, an SEO-friendly website helps you achieve exactly that!
There are many ways to get valuable traffic with the help of an SEO-friendly design. One of them is using long-tail keywords in your content. Let us define long-tail keywords for you to understand them better. The search terms that have low competition levels and search volume are called long-tail keywords. They have a longer length (more than 3 words) as compared to other keyword types. Such keywords are specific and derive more valuable traffic to your website. Some examples of long-tail keywords include buy beebalms plant near me.ā
Another way you get valuable traffic with the help of an SEO-friendly design is because it integrates a responsive design into your website. Such a design is an essential part of an SEO-friendly website. A responsive design helps your website to adapt to any device the user may be using at the time of the search (such as a tablet, mobile, or website). This helps the users to have a positive experience on your website. They tend to stay longer on your website because the website accurately fits their screens. This, in turn, sends a positive signal to Google. As a result, your site's ranking improves in the search results and you get more valuable traffic.
3. Is Cost-effective
Ā It is important to understand that as opposed to paid advertising or other marketing strategies, you are not required to spend money on achieving a good ranking in search results. Search engine listings are free and easy to attain. A website that is implemented with SEO strategies helps you in this respect.
Consider this scenario for better understanding- when funding is stopped for an ad, it is removed from the internet, and web traffic declines for that specific website. But when it comes to utilizing SEO, your web traffic and ranking remain consistent without the need to spend any money.
4. Increases Your Reputation
If you take a look at one of the statistics of 2020, it may not come as a surprise that 89% of consumers read reviews before purchasing products (as quoted by Trustpilot, which is a leading online review platform). With so many people checking for reviews before purchasing from a business, your website needs to create a great impression on its visitors. An SEO-friendly website helps you achieve this.
A notable characteristic of such a website is that it has a visually pleasing interface along and easy navigation that helps visitors find the information they seek. The website is tailored keeping in mind the needs of your target audience. The aim is to keep the visitors engaged and help them become return users. When people have a good experience on your website, it only works to enhance your reputation in the market.
5. Enhances Customer Experience
As you can now easily interpret, an SEO-friendly design helps in enhancing the customer experience. You gain customer loyalty and get repeat customers when you provide them with such an experience.
A good customer experience is like an endorsement. If search engines become aware that people are clicking onto more pages or spending more time on your website, your ranking will definitely soar high.
Insider tip: Refrain from using too many flash elements as it doesn't add value to the SEO of your website. Moreover, it delays the loading time, which can annoy your customers. Focus on offering a more refined user experience with different SEO practices, such as improving site speed and interlinking for increased content discoverability.
6. Is Optimized for Conversions
Getting quality traffic on your website is impressive but you need to analyze if you are able to 'seal the deal.' An SEO-friendly website design is Conversion Rate Optimized (CRO). CRO is defined as the process in which your website and content are tweaked, tested, and improved to increase conversions. With CRO, you get more out of your web traffic. There are many CRO marketing strategies that you can try, some of which include:
- Use live chat software in your high-performing webpages
- Use lead flows (high-converting pop-ups that offer value)
- Re-engage people who left your website by tracking them and showing them online ads when they check other websites on the internet.
7. Is a Long-term Investment
How about having a web design that keeps paying you back? An SEO-friendly website design pays your business back as long as you vow to maintain it. All that you require is minimal monthly maintenance to maintain the position that you have in search results. Doing so also helps you increase traffic and helps your business grow.
8. SEO Holds Even More Importance on Mobile
How many times have you used your mobile to search for information and products? 88% of consumers looking for a local business with the help of a mobile device end up visiting/calling the business. This means, it is crucial to be on top of mobile search results or you may lose your customers to the competition.
As mentioned before, an SEO-friendly website has a responsive design that helps you connect with mobile users. Such a design offers an improved user experience and helps your leads stay longer on your website when they conduct a mobile search. Owing to this fact, Google ranks your website higher in the search results, which in turn, helps you get more customers.
9. Builds Brand Credibility
You must already trust the websites that show up on the first pages of Bing, Yahoo, or Google, right? Other internet users are likely to think the same too. This not only helps in brand awareness but is also good for brand credibility. You may ask why? Well, when you are displayed on the top, it clearly states that you are the best in your field. It makes a statement that your website is as per the needs of your users. A website that finds a frequent mention at the top of the result page is bound to gain exposure and credibility.
10. Helps Increases Engagement
We all know the objective of digital marketing ā create interaction with your customers. This engagement leads to brand exposure or an increase in sales. Thus, it is important to devise an SEO strategy that helps you reach more people, make them stay longer on your website, and urge them to share your content. Remember, your rankings will improve with more engagement and you will get the chance to move towards your desired results.
How to Create an SEO-friendly Website?
You can create an SEO-friendly website by keeping certain factors in mind. For instance, incorporate the most important keyword in the title of a page. Apart from this, you can integrate other essential keywords in smaller headings as well. You must also add content that is light and captivates the reader.
Implementing all these tips is just the start of the journey towards an SEO-friendly website. Here are some more ways to make your website SEO friendly:
- Ā Add new content regularly
- Ā Optimize your meta description to increase clicks
- Ā Use internal as well as external links
- Make sure that the readability of the content is on point
If you wish to create SEO-friendly websites in seconds, DashClicks's InstaSites tool allows you to do exactly this. Just a few clicks and you are done!
Bottomline
An SEO-friendly web design is extremely important for your business to find potential customers. We all know that building an SEO-friendly, professional niche-based website can take many days. However, if you use DashClicks' agency website tool, you can make an SEO-friendly, custom branded agency website in a matter of seconds. An excellent way of impressing your prospects, isn't it?
All in all, now that you know the importance of an SEO-friendly website design, you are in a better position to put in the required work and take your business to greater heights.